The author of this book, Rafe Esquith, is an incredibly dedicated veteran teacher in the inner city of Los Angeles, winner of the American Teacher Award, and a challenger of the status quo of how things are “supposed to be done” in the public school. He began his teaching career in an elite suburban school, but decided he wanted to teach in the inner city where he could better serve students in need. He has been teaching 5th and 6th Graders at “The Jungle” for 19 years, most of whom who enter his classroom barely speaking English and living in poverty. Rafe continually goes out of his way to educate his students using non-traditional methods. His students amazingly are willing to come in two hours before the regular school day starts and stay two hours past the end of the school to learn Algebra, classical music, Science, Social Studies, and produce a masterpiece Shakespeare drama they perform for the school and even the community. On his lunch hour, Rafe teaches classical guitar to any students interested. Further, he invites any students, both current and former, who want to continue advanced learning to come to his house every Saturday morning where he holds additional classes. All of these extra hours that Rafe teaches he has never received compensation for. The students in his class study great works of literature including such classics as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Great Expectations, The Catcher in the Rye, The Hobbit, To Kill A Mockingbird, and many more. Year after year Rafe takes his students, most of whom have never been out of their own city, on marvelous camping trips, classical concerts, Shakespearean dramas, trips to New York City and Washington D.C. all at Rafe’s own expense. Further, he develops such character in the children that whenever he takes them on these trips they are so well behaved that he receives numerous letters and compliments from onlookers amazed at the maturity of his students in public. Rafe’s book provides the beginning teacher with tremendous insight into teaching by explaining what he has learned through the years about himself, his peers, administrators, parents, and mostly from his students. He developed his classroom motto after taking his students to a Dvorak cello concerto played by Lynn Harrell and after the show students were interviewing Lynn and asked, “Mr. Harrell, how can you make music that sounds that beautiful?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 20). Lynn responded with, “well . . . there are no shortcuts” (Esquith, 2003, p. 41). This became Rafe’s motto which has inspired countless 5th and 6th grade classes to work to the highest potential and continually score well above even the elite suburban school districts. Rafe gives the new teacher, and even the veteran teacher excellent wisdom into the “real teaching world” and inspiring ideas to use in the classroom and a realistic picture of the teaching world.
What diverse group or groups is being depicted?
The diverse group being depicted is inner city minority children most of whom do not speak English.
How did reading or viewing your text change your perception of students who might be in your classroom?
This book has shown me how much students can achieve regardless of their home environments or the odds that say otherwise. For example one student, Joy, had a particularly rough home life. Her father was an alcoholic, her mother worked 7 days a week to support the family. One day her father held her under the bathtub then locked her in a closet and took a shotgun to go after her mother and said he would come back for her too. Joy escaped from the closet and called Rafe. The police were called and several months later Joy and her mother left the Father. The Father went on to kill his 2nd wife, her brother and sister-in-law and then himself. Despite the odds from Joy’s home life, she always came to school ready to learn with a smile on her face and she went on to college and graduated to lead a happy, productive life (Esquith, 2003).
This book has also shown me how to incorporate life skills into the classroom in a very real way. For example, each year, Rafe gives the kids year-long life lessons in Economics, budgeting, Math, and earning and spending. Each student “applies” for a class job and must furnish a resume’ and be “hired” by Rafe. The students earn and are paid classroom money bi-weekly. They are also charged monthly rent for their seats in the classroom. Seats in the front of the class cost more than seats in the back. Students have the option to save their money and as the year progresses they can actually “buy” their seat for the year and/or if they have saved enough money they can buy other students’ seats and charge those students rent. Students also have the option of purchasing prizes with their money once a month. Rafe always saves the best prizes for the end of the year to encourage students to maintain discipline to avoide impulse buying and learn how to save for what they really want. Students can also receive bonuses for perfect or high scores on tests or coming in early or staying after school to study with him and/or receive fines for bad behavior or missing homework.
How did reading or viewing your text enhance your cultural awareness of the students you will serve?
My cultural awareness was enhanced by seeing that it doesn’t matter what economic situation, race, or ethnicity a student is, or even if they don’t speak English, they ALL can learn to their fullest potential when the teacher communicates high expectations for each student and is willing to dedicate him or herself to the students learning and raise the bar with academic and character building expectations. Rafe has continually helped many, many students go on to achieve academic success and make it to college, many graduating with high honors.
What new insights do you have now?
Students need to be taught, not just academics, but also how to behave politely and with respect for others. For example, Rafe often took his class to highly sophisticated plays, dinners, concerts, etc. He received hundreds of letters and compliments from onlookers. After eating dinner in an expensive restaurant in Cambria, California a letter he received stated,
“The manners and demeanor of these fifteen students and their teacher and his wife could not have been more exemplary. These were (and are) beautiful children. At the dinner they were impeccably clean and nicely dressed. . It was easy to see that we were dining with very happy children who were wonderfully disciplined, and whose manners were certainly no less sophisticated than those of the members of our Palos Verdes group.” (Esquith, 2003, p.180).
Another time Rafe took his class to New York City and they were lined up to see a virtual reality trip the kids had elected to see. Rafe had to leave forty-one 5th graders alone, down the hallway quite a ways to purchase the tickets. A New York ticket man asked them what they did for fun and screamed to them that they sure were quite. One of Rafe’s student’s responded, “Well, our teacher has taught us this is a public place. We don’t like to disturb anybody.” (Esquith, 2003, p. 182).
Students can be shown that their dreams can come true, but it will take hard work and they can be motivated to want to achieve, even to the point of studying long hours. Many of Rafe’s students spend about 60-70 hours a week studying with him and have really embraced the motto, “There are no shortcuts”. Even though they are economically disadvantages and may have poor family situations, they want to remain competitive with their suburban peers and study hard so they can one day fulfill the dream of getting to college. Many of Rafe's students go to college and excel. For example, one of Rafe’s students, a boy named Kevin, entered his class with a terrible stutter, rarely spoke, and was withdrawn. Previous teachers had listed Kevin as “quiet”, but nothing else. Rafe gave Kevin a small part in the Shakespeare play that year, gave him the anchor position as a guitarist for Rafe’s student band, and spent time playing a lot of chess with him. Years later Kevin stopped by to see Rafe and asked to help him with his Saturday class which at that time was an SAT prep class for ex-students. Kevin’s stuttering had greatly improved; he was one of the best high school chess players in the nation; he was captain of his school chess team and school science team; he was also the premier scorer in all of California in the Academic Decathlon. Kevin won over a dozen medals, many of them gold. He had a 4.5 GPA and scored 1540 on the SAT with a perfect 800 in mathematics. He was awarded a Regent’s Scholarship by Berkley (Esquith, 2003).
Teachers who care may not always be recognized by administrators, peers, or anyone else, but the rewards come from students who succeed. One year Rafe's class was selected to perform onstage in London at a Shakespeare conference. This was a great honor, and should have been recognized by his superiors. However, one of Rafe’s supervisors came in, not to congratulate him, but to tell him that his pay would be docked for the entire time he was in London with the students (Esquith, 2003). There were no congratulations or words of a job well done.
One time Rafe decided to have his students meet in the school on a day off to practice for a city-wide math competition coming up. They were looking for a place in the school to work and found no one in the library so they went in there.
Suddenly a teacher came in and looked surprised to see someone in there. She informed them they’d have to get out. Rafe asked if she had a class coming in there. She said “no”. Rafe asked, “Why do we have to leave?’ She stated, “Because we have to decorate . . . for the bridal shower.” Rafe stated, “You’re asking the team who will represent our school in a math competition to vacate the library so you can decorate for a bridal shower?” She said, “You know, Rafe, you really don’t understand things. Staff morale is very important.” Rafe stated, “More important than math?” She stated, “What’s the use talking with you? You really need to learn how to get along with people. Could you please leave, and take those kids with you?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 196).
There can be a lot of red tape in school districts and many uninformed educators who implement ideas without thinking through what’s best for the students. One time a business donated 60 of their used computers, but in excellent condition, to Rafe’s school. Each teacher had 2 or three computers put into their rooms and students and teachers were very excited to have the new computers. However, the computer teacher confiscated all of the computers within a week because they were against the rules to have because they had not been approved by the district. As Rafe put it, “Here we had a computer teacher depriving children of extra computers because, according to her understanding of the rules, every computer had to be the same with the same programs run in the same way” (2003, p. 116 ).
Another example of red tape occurred in Rafe's school for new teachers. After one teacher’s first year of teaching, she received a notice from the district stating they did not have all the necessary paperwork and it must be received by 3:00pm that day or she would not have a job on Monday. She raced downtown to find herself in line with hundreds of other new teachers who had received the same notice. They are all treated with rudeness and by the time the new teacher got to the front of the line, she was told she was too late and they were closing. They told her to come back early Saturday morning. She arrived at 4:30am to find 50 other new teachers doing the same. When she got to the front of the line, she was informed the district needed her fingerprints which she told them she gave them at the beginning of the year. They could not find them and told her she would have to go to another office and do it again (Esquith, 2003).
As a teacher, it is so important to listen to your students. For example, one year Rafe had really liked 3 girls in class he called the 3 Musketeers. They were achieving high academically and Rafe thought they were the greatest. However, a couple of years later when the girls entered Junior High School they began publicly criticizing Rafe terribly and even wrote a nasty letter to Rafe that hurt his feelings tremendously. When Rafe questioned some of his former students as to why this happened one student responded, “You don’t know them. I’ve known them since I was in kindergarten. I’ve known them much longer than you have. They’re not nice kids. You just don’t see things. . . .You only know them when they’re around you. Lots of kids use you, Mr. Esquith. You just don’t see it. You love them so much you don’t see them clearly. You don’t even know who some of your best students are.” (Esquith, 2003, p. 88-89). This girl’s comment made Rafe self-reflect and he stated, “I needed to take a good look at my classroom through the eyes of the kids. . . I spoke very little and listened a lot [to the students]. I learned quite a bit from them.” (2003, p.89).
Teachers need to be smart to teach. One time 2 young 5th grade teachers from another school came to observe Rafe’s teaching methods as he had been receiving some national attention for his students’ great academic successes. When talking with these 2 observers they stated they could never read “Of Mice and Men” to their own students because of the “D .----“ word in it. Rafe stated, “To tell you the truth, I think my students have heard that word before. But your point is well taken. The issue here isn’t for you to read something that you find distasteful. I’ve chosen literature I personally love, and in teaching it, my passion is passed on to my students. You can do the same thing. Tell me a book that has meant something to you.” (2003, p. 36-37). The young teacher responded, “Well, I don’t like to read. I never read.” (Esquith, 2003, p.37). Rafe’s question was how can you expect a teacher to be a good teacher if they are not knowledgable themselves.
Another time Rafe had a substitute teacher in his class – a District Administrator– as the teacher’s union was on strike and Rafe would not break the strike line. The District Administrator had chosen Rafe’s class because he had heard they were bright children and thought the class would be easy to teach. The conversation began with the Administrator asking the children where they were in their math books. The students responded that they didn’t have books. They said they were learning Algebra and the teacher couldn’t afford to buy books so he made copies of the one book he had. The Administrator said he was really impressed that the 6th graders were doing “Pre-Algebra”. The students corrected, “Not Pre-Algebra. Algebra” (Esquith, 2003, p.170). The Administrator then asked them what they were working on and they said factoring polynomials. One student then proceeded to ask the Administrator about a homework problem, “It’s number 35. Is that a trinomial square? It looks like it, but it also seems I could pull out a GCF. What do I do?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171). The Administrator said, “I really don’t know. Just read the instructions and keep trying. I’m sure you’ll get it” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171). The student said he wouldn’t just “get it” and wanted his teacher back because he explains things well. The student then asked, “Rafe once told me he makes $35,000 a year. I read in the paper you make over $100,000 a year. How come you make so much more money? He’s much smarter than you!” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171).
Link connections between what you teach to the outside world. Rafe always prepares his students with the knowledge necessary to truly enjoy a field trip before they attend. For example, when Sir Ian McKellen did a world tour of Richard III, the students all first read Hamlet, saw a film of Hamlet, and then saw his performance. When going to classical concert, the students first study the movements and music and listen to a CD of that music. They have a test on that music before they even attend the concert (Esquith, 2003).
Was this text relevant to your teaching practice and/or the classroom community?
This text was very relevant to my teaching practice and classroom. I have learned so many valuable insights to use in my classroom and to understand what to expect both good and bad when I enter the teaching world. The book has inspired me to believe all students can and will succeed.
Do you recommend this text to others? Why or why not?
I highly recommend this book to anyone entering the teaching field as well as veteran teachers who have fallen into a rut and want to be inspired to do more for their students. The real life examples Rafe gives straight from his own teaching career and examples he gives from numerous students he has taught are so valuable and insightful. Also, his methods and teaching ideas are tremendous and awe inspiring such as the study of great literature, the production of the Shakespeare plays, the classical music, the advanced Math the students are taught, and their successes far down the road once they leave Rafe’s classroom. Rafe is truly an amazing teacher who has so profoundly given of himself over and over again in order that his students might succeed. He is what I call a truly dedicated and highly effective teacher!
Would you use this book with your students?
I may read portions of the book, particularly examples about students Rafe has had in his own classroom to inspire my own students or provoke discussion. This book is mostly meant for an adult teaching audience, but many valuable lessons can be taught to my own students by studying the successes and/or challenges of other students their age. I would most likely use this book in a 5th/6th grade classroom. Some of the language in the book is inappropriate for children below age 16.
Below is a poem quoted in Rafe’s book that inspired Rafe and can inspire all teachers and students to perform with higher expectations. It was taken from Charles Osgood of CBS News. I think this would be a useful poem to discuss with my students.
“There once was a pretty good student, Who sat in a pretty good class; Who was taught by a pretty good teacher, Who always let pretty good pass—
He wasn’t terrific at reading, He wasn’t a whizbang at math; But for him education was leading Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting, But he wanted to do pretty well; And he did have some trouble with writing, And no one had taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems, Pretty good was regarded as fine – 5 plus 5 needn’t always add up to be 10 A pretty good answer was 9.
The pretty good class that he sat in Was part of a pretty good school; And the student was not the exception, On the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good student, in fact, was Part of a pretty good mob; And the first time he knew that he lacked was When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position He discovered that life could be tough – And he soon had a sneaking suspicion, Pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story Was part of a pretty good state, Which had pretty good aspirations, And prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once was a pretty good nation, Pretty proud of the greatness it had, Which learned much too late, if you wanted to be great, Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.
Completed - July 10th, 2011
The author of this book, Rafe Esquith, is an incredibly dedicated veteran teacher in the inner city of Los Angeles, winner of the American Teacher Award, and a challenger of the status quo of how things are “supposed to be done” in the public school. He began his teaching career in an elite suburban school, but decided he wanted to teach in the inner city where he could better serve students in need. He has been teaching 5th and 6th Graders at “The Jungle” for 19 years, most of whom who enter his classroom barely speaking English and living in poverty. Rafe continually goes out of his way to educate his students using non-traditional methods. His students amazingly are willing to come in two hours before the regular school day starts and stay two hours past the end of the school to learn Algebra, classical music, Science, Social Studies, and produce a masterpiece Shakespeare drama they perform for the school and even the community. On his lunch hour, Rafe teaches classical guitar to any students interested. Further, he invites any students, both current and former, who want to continue advanced learning to come to his house every Saturday morning where he holds additional classes. All of these extra hours that Rafe teaches he has never received compensation for. The students in his class study great works of literature including such classics as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Great Expectations, The Catcher in the Rye, The Hobbit, To Kill A Mockingbird, and many more. Year after year Rafe takes his students, most of whom have never been out of their own city, on marvelous camping trips, classical concerts, Shakespearean dramas, trips to New York City and Washington D.C. all at Rafe’s own expense. Further, he develops such character in the children that whenever he takes them on these trips they are so well behaved that he receives numerous letters and compliments from onlookers amazed at the maturity of his students in public. Rafe’s book provides the beginning teacher with tremendous insight into teaching by explaining what he has learned through the years about himself, his peers, administrators, parents, and mostly from his students. He developed his classroom motto after taking his students to a Dvorak cello concerto played by Lynn Harrell and after the show students were interviewing Lynn and asked, “Mr. Harrell, how can you make music that sounds that beautiful?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 20). Lynn responded with, “well . . . there are no shortcuts” (Esquith, 2003, p. 41). This became Rafe’s motto which has inspired countless 5th and 6th grade classes to work to the highest potential and continually score well above even the elite suburban school districts. Rafe gives the new teacher, and even the veteran teacher excellent wisdom into the “real teaching world” and inspiring ideas to use in the classroom and a realistic picture of the teaching world.
- What diverse group or groups is being depicted?
The diverse group being depicted is inner city minority children most of whom do not speak English.- How did reading or viewing your text change your perception of students who might be in your classroom?
This book has shown me how much students can achieve regardless of their home environments or the odds that say otherwise. For example one student, Joy, had a particularly rough home life. Her father was an alcoholic, her mother worked 7 days a week to support the family. One day her father held her under the bathtub then locked her in a closet and took a shotgun to go after her mother and said he would come back for her too. Joy escaped from the closet and called Rafe. The police were called and several months later Joy and her mother left the Father. The Father went on to kill his 2nd wife, her brother and sister-in-law and then himself. Despite the odds from Joy’s home life, she always came to school ready to learn with a smile on her face and she went on to college and graduated to lead a happy, productive life (Esquith, 2003).This book has also shown me how to incorporate life skills into the classroom in a very real way. For example, each year, Rafe gives the kids year-long life lessons in Economics, budgeting, Math, and earning and spending. Each student “applies” for a class job and must furnish a resume’ and be “hired” by Rafe. The students earn and are paid classroom money bi-weekly. They are also charged monthly rent for their seats in the classroom. Seats in the front of the class cost more than seats in the back. Students have the option to save their money and as the year progresses they can actually “buy” their seat for the year and/or if they have saved enough money they can buy other students’ seats and charge those students rent. Students also have the option of purchasing prizes with their money once a month. Rafe always saves the best prizes for the end of the year to encourage students to maintain discipline to avoide impulse buying and learn how to save for what they really want. Students can also receive bonuses for perfect or high scores on tests or coming in early or staying after school to study with him and/or receive fines for bad behavior or missing homework.
- How did reading or viewing your text enhance your cultural awareness of the students you will serve?
My cultural awareness was enhanced by seeing that it doesn’t matter what economic situation, race, or ethnicity a student is, or even if they don’t speak English, they ALL can learn to their fullest potential when the teacher communicates high expectations for each student and is willing to dedicate him or herself to the students learning and raise the bar with academic and character building expectations. Rafe has continually helped many, many students go on to achieve academic success and make it to college, many graduating with high honors.- What new insights do you have now?
Students need to be taught, not just academics, but also how to behave politely and with respect for others. For example, Rafe often took his class to highly sophisticated plays, dinners, concerts, etc. He received hundreds of letters and compliments from onlookers. After eating dinner in an expensive restaurant in Cambria, California a letter he received stated,“The manners and demeanor of these fifteen students and their teacher and his wife could not have been more exemplary. These were (and are) beautiful children. At the dinner they were impeccably clean and nicely dressed. . It was easy to see that we were dining with very happy children who were wonderfully disciplined, and whose manners were certainly no less sophisticated than those of the members of our Palos Verdes group.” (Esquith, 2003, p.180).
Another time Rafe took his class to New York City and they were lined up to see a virtual reality trip the kids had elected to see. Rafe had to leave forty-one 5th graders alone, down the hallway quite a ways to purchase the tickets. A New York ticket man asked them what they did for fun and screamed to them that they sure were quite. One of Rafe’s student’s responded, “Well, our teacher has taught us this is a public place. We don’t like to disturb anybody.” (Esquith, 2003, p. 182).
Students can be shown that their dreams can come true, but it will take hard work and they can be motivated to want to achieve, even to the point of studying long hours.
Many of Rafe’s students spend about 60-70 hours a week studying with him and have really embraced the motto, “There are no shortcuts”. Even though they are economically disadvantages and may have poor family situations, they want to remain competitive with their suburban peers and study hard so they can one day fulfill the dream of getting to college. Many of Rafe's students go to college and excel.
For example, one of Rafe’s students, a boy named Kevin, entered his class with a terrible stutter, rarely spoke, and was withdrawn. Previous teachers had listed Kevin as “quiet”, but nothing else. Rafe gave Kevin a small part in the Shakespeare play that year, gave him the anchor position as a guitarist for Rafe’s student band, and spent time playing a lot of chess with him. Years later Kevin stopped by to see Rafe and asked to help him with his Saturday class which at that time was an SAT prep class for ex-students. Kevin’s stuttering had greatly improved; he was one of the best high school chess players in the nation; he was captain of his school chess team and school science team; he was also the premier scorer in all of California in the Academic Decathlon. Kevin won over a dozen medals, many of them gold. He had a 4.5 GPA and scored 1540 on the SAT with a perfect 800 in mathematics. He was awarded a Regent’s Scholarship by Berkley (Esquith, 2003).
Teachers who care may not always be recognized by administrators, peers, or anyone else, but the rewards come from students who succeed.
One year Rafe's class was selected to perform onstage in London at a Shakespeare conference. This was a great honor, and should have been recognized by his superiors. However, one of Rafe’s supervisors came in, not to congratulate him, but to tell him that his pay would be docked for the entire time he was in London with the students (Esquith, 2003). There were no congratulations or words of a job well done.
One time Rafe decided to have his students meet in the school on a day off to practice for a city-wide math competition coming up. They were looking for a place in the school to work and found no one in the library so they went in there.
Suddenly a teacher came in and looked surprised to see someone in there. She informed them they’d have to get out. Rafe asked if she had a class coming in there. She said “no”. Rafe asked, “Why do we have to leave?’ She stated, “Because we have to decorate . . . for the bridal shower.” Rafe stated, “You’re asking the team who will represent our school in a math competition to vacate the library so you can decorate for a bridal shower?” She said, “You know, Rafe, you really don’t understand things. Staff morale is very important.” Rafe stated, “More important than math?” She stated, “What’s the use talking with you? You really need to learn how to get along with people. Could you please leave, and take those kids with you?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 196).
There can be a lot of red tape in school districts and many uninformed educators who implement ideas without thinking through what’s best for the students.
One time a business donated 60 of their used computers, but in excellent condition, to Rafe’s school. Each teacher had 2 or three computers put into their rooms and students and teachers were very excited to have the new computers. However, the computer teacher confiscated all of the computers within a week because they were against the rules to have because they had not been approved by the district. As Rafe put it, “Here we had a computer teacher depriving children of extra computers because, according to her understanding of the rules, every computer had to be the same with the same programs run in the same way” (2003, p. 116 ).
Another example of red tape occurred in Rafe's school for new teachers. After one teacher’s first year of teaching, she received a notice from the district stating they did not have all the necessary paperwork and it must be received by 3:00pm that day or she would not have a job on Monday. She raced downtown to find herself in line with hundreds of other new teachers who had received the same notice. They are all treated with rudeness and by the time the new teacher got to the front of the line, she was told she was too late and they were closing. They told her to come back early Saturday morning. She arrived at 4:30am to find 50 other new teachers doing the same. When she got to the front of the line, she was informed the district needed her fingerprints which she told them she gave them at the beginning of the year. They could not find them and told her she would have to go to another office and do it again (Esquith, 2003).
As a teacher, it is so important to listen to your students.
For example, one year Rafe had really liked 3 girls in class he called the 3 Musketeers. They were achieving high academically and Rafe thought they were the greatest. However, a couple of years later when the girls entered Junior High School they began publicly criticizing Rafe terribly and even wrote a nasty letter to Rafe that hurt his feelings tremendously. When Rafe questioned some of his former students as to why this happened one student responded, “You don’t know them. I’ve known them since I was in kindergarten. I’ve known them much longer than you have. They’re not nice kids. You just don’t see things. . . .You only know them when they’re around you. Lots of kids use you, Mr. Esquith. You just don’t see it. You love them so much you don’t see them clearly. You don’t even know who some of your best students are.” (Esquith, 2003, p. 88-89). This girl’s comment made Rafe self-reflect and he stated, “I needed to take a good look at my classroom through the eyes of the kids. . . I spoke very little and listened a lot [to the students]. I learned quite a bit from them.” (2003, p.89).
Teachers need to be smart to teach.
One time 2 young 5th grade teachers from another school came to observe Rafe’s teaching methods as he had been receiving some national attention for his students’ great academic successes. When talking with these 2 observers they stated they could never read “Of Mice and Men” to their own students because of the “D .----“ word in it. Rafe stated, “To tell you the truth, I think my students have heard that word before. But your point is well taken. The issue here isn’t for you to read something that you find distasteful. I’ve chosen literature I personally love, and in teaching it, my passion is passed on to my students. You can do the same thing. Tell me a book that has meant something to you.” (2003, p. 36-37). The young teacher responded, “Well, I don’t like to read. I never read.” (Esquith, 2003, p.37). Rafe’s question was how can you expect a teacher to be a good teacher if they are not knowledgable themselves.
Another time Rafe had a substitute teacher in his class – a District Administrator– as the teacher’s union was on strike and Rafe would not break the strike line. The District Administrator had chosen Rafe’s class because he had heard they were bright children and thought the class would be easy to teach. The conversation began with the Administrator asking the children where they were in their math books. The students responded that they didn’t have books. They said they were learning Algebra and the teacher couldn’t afford to buy books so he made copies of the one book he had. The Administrator said he was really impressed that the 6th graders were doing “Pre-Algebra”. The students corrected, “Not Pre-Algebra. Algebra” (Esquith, 2003, p.170). The Administrator then asked them what they were working on and they said factoring polynomials. One student then proceeded to ask the Administrator about a homework problem, “It’s number 35. Is that a trinomial square? It looks like it, but it also seems I could pull out a GCF. What do I do?” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171). The Administrator said, “I really don’t know. Just read the instructions and keep trying. I’m sure you’ll get it” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171). The student said he wouldn’t just “get it” and wanted his teacher back because he explains things well. The student then asked, “Rafe once told me he makes $35,000 a year. I read in the paper you make over $100,000 a year. How come you make so much more money? He’s much smarter than you!” (Esquith, 2003, p. 171).
Link connections between what you teach to the outside world.
Rafe always prepares his students with the knowledge necessary to truly enjoy a field trip before they attend. For example, when Sir Ian McKellen did a world tour of Richard III, the students all first read Hamlet, saw a film of Hamlet, and then saw his performance. When going to classical concert, the students first study the movements and music and listen to a CD of that music. They have a test on that music before they even attend the concert (Esquith, 2003).
- Was this text relevant to your teaching practice and/or the classroom community?
This text was very relevant to my teaching practice and classroom. I have learned so many valuable insights to use in my classroom and to understand what to expect both good and bad when I enter the teaching world. The book has inspired me to believe all students can and will succeed.- Do you recommend this text to others? Why or why not?
I highly recommend this book to anyone entering the teaching field as well as veteran teachers who have fallen into a rut and want to be inspired to do more for their students. The real life examples Rafe gives straight from his own teaching career and examples he gives from numerous students he has taught are so valuable and insightful. Also, his methods and teaching ideas are tremendous and awe inspiring such as the study of great literature, the production of the Shakespeare plays, the classical music, the advanced Math the students are taught, and their successes far down the road once they leave Rafe’s classroom. Rafe is truly an amazing teacher who has so profoundly given of himself over and over again in order that his students might succeed. He is what I call a truly dedicated and highly effective teacher!- Would you use this book with your students?
I may read portions of the book, particularly examples about students Rafe has had in his own classroom to inspire my own students or provoke discussion. This book is mostly meant for an adult teaching audience, but many valuable lessons can be taught to my own students by studying the successes and/or challenges of other students their age. I would most likely use this book in a 5th/6th grade classroom. Some of the language in the book is inappropriate for children below age 16.Below is a poem quoted in Rafe’s book that inspired Rafe and can inspire all teachers and students to perform with higher expectations. It was taken from Charles Osgood of CBS News. I think this would be a useful poem to discuss with my students.
“There once was a pretty good student,
Who sat in a pretty good class;
Who was taught by a pretty good teacher,
Who always let pretty good pass—
He wasn’t terrific at reading,
He wasn’t a whizbang at math;
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well;
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And no one had taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine –
5 plus 5 needn’t always add up to be 10
A pretty good answer was 9.
The pretty good class that he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school;
And the student was not the exception,
On the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good student, in fact, was
Part of a pretty good mob;
And the first time he knew that he lacked was
When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position
He discovered that life could be tough –
And he soon had a sneaking suspicion,
Pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state,
Which had pretty good aspirations,
And prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once was a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late, if you wanted to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.
(Esquith, 2003, p. 55-56).